The 2020 elections drew record turnout with over 158 million Americans casting a ballot. Despite concerns regarding COVID-19 and foreign interference, election officials from federal agencies with oversight over election security, national organizations, nonprofits, and vendors described the election as “the most secure in American history.” Following the first part of this election retrospective that focused on lessons learned from the 2020 elections, a panel of election officials and experts discuss what comes next for election security policy. To break down what policymakers need to know to prepare for future elections, experts discuss voter turnout, conducting elections during uncertainty, voting by mail, in-person voting, audits, misinformation, ballot access and equity, and cybersecurity.
Presented in partnership with the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine’s (NASEM) Committee on Science, Technology, and Law (CSTL).
Speakers:
Duncan Buell, NCR Chair Emeritus in Computer Science and Engineering at University of South Carolina
Bridgett King, Associate Professor in Political Science at Auburn
Amber McReynolds, CEO of the National Vote at Home Institute
Maggie Toulouse Oliver, New Mexico Secretary of State
Moderator:
Michael McRobbie, Indiana University, President and co-hair 2018 NASEM report, Securing the Vote
Introduced by Anne-Marie Mazza, Senior Director, National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine and Steve Newell, Project Director, American Association for the Advancement of Science.
ADDITIONAL RESOURCES
Cal Tech/MIT Voting Technology Project
MIT Election Data and Science Lab
Survey of the Performance of American Elections, a national survey of registered voters
Persily N., Stewart C., "The Miracle and Tragedy of the 2020 U.S. Election," Journal of Democracy, vol. 32, no. 2, 2021. [Online]. Available: https://muse.jhu.edu/article/787843#bio_wrap
Securing the Vote: Protecting American Democracy, National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine 2018 Consensus Study Report
Stanford-MIT Healthy Elections Project
The Brennan Center for Justice: Election Security
